LJ softball: Era end

Linda Brown (left), Viking power hitter, helps

her mom put on protective equipment before

the team's paintball party.

(Photos by Ed Piper, Jr.)

By Ed Piper, Jr.

This is a tale of two third basemen. Basewomen?

One stayed at the hot corner. One got moved to catcher.

Linda Brown and Stephanie Alvarez have some similarities. Both are powerfully built, so as to yield the many home runs that they respectively hit for La Jolla High's softball team.

Both are easy-going. Highly competitive, but people easy to approach and talk to. People-persons, I guess you could say. Both are amiable and used to being around family and friends.

Stephanie probably smiles more, but Linda is not averse to that facial expression.

Both were at the Vikings' paintball team event in Clairemont Sat., June 3. So, later, as I reflected on the fun time the CIF-winning team, the 2017 edition, had together one more time, I thought of some of these things.

It's the end of another era, with Linda and her fellow seniors, Ava Verbrugghen and Sara Tyrus, graduating in a handful of days on the Edwards Field turf.

It was a bittersweet evening the other night, because Linda and her dad, Tracy, have come as a package deal from the day Linda started softball at La Jolla in Spring 2014. "Grandpa", James Brown--great name--has also been a frequent flyer in the team's spectating area.

Just the same way certain things changed the day Stephanie, two years her elder, ended her slugging Viking softball career in 2015. Stephanie graduated with teammate Katya Sarain, the team's pitcher. Katya's dad, Anthony, coached one more year, then this year "did the schedule and some behind-the-scenes things", Anthony said the other day after stepping down after seven years as head coach. Andrea Denham moved up from JV coach to take over his position this year.

Linda Brown (center left, background) takes part

in captains' meeting before 7-2 win at Mar Vista

in CIF second round. Vikings are (from left) Sara

Tyrus, Brown, Josie Sinkeldam, and head coach

Andrea Denham.

 



 

Linda got a CIF title. Stephanie didn't. It wasn't Stephanie's fault. She came in when the softball program was barely afloat. The team hadn't won for years. There were hardly enough players to field a team and avoid forfeits.

Stephanie, her skills honed in club softball, began crushing the ball right off the bat (to use a pun). She played at third her first year. Then, when the need arose, Coach Sarain moved her behind the plate.

Stephanie, I think, has enjoyed being around the team during the playoffs this Spring as they made their way to the CIF title. According to the coaches, this is the first CIF title for the La Jolla softball program. Stephanie gladly came with her younger sister, Emily, who is the present team's first baseman, finishing her junior year, to San Diego Paintball to strategically fire a few paint blobs at one another.

I'm happy to report that Stephanie is presently pursuing her favorite sport at St. Mary's in North Dakota. She's back playing the infield, first base mostly.

Linda, in her own team context, had to switch positions, too. She started at shortstop her freshman year, as I remember it. Then fellow phenom Josie Sinkeldam, a shortstop, came in a year later, and Linda moved to third, where she has stayed the last three years.

Linda's and Stephanie's value to their team could be quantified by the numbers. Their statistics are impressive. Linda, over the past four years, hit .417, .442, .490, and .447. Her homers, by year from her freshman year, were 2, 9, 7, and 5. Before her two homers in the semis this year against Coronado in a 12-3 thrashing, Anthony Sarain observed from behind the backstop, "Linda's homers have dipped this year, but not her hitting." She then crushed both shots over the netting strung in centerfield at the Poway SportsPlex. The barrage was part of a 19-hit team-wide power display that sent them straight into the finals at UCSD, which they won over Mission Bay in a thrilling walk-off win in the bottom of the seventh, 2-1.

Linda's RBI's tracked 11, 25, 38, and 35. Keep in mind this is in 23, 29, 30, and 28 games. So after her freshman year, when she and Stephanie had no one on base hardly to drive in, she averaged about an RBI a game. In the major leagues that would be all-star, even Hall of Fame worthy. These two should both be in La Jolla's sports Hall of Fame, should such an institution ever be started.

Linda got 25, 46, 50, and 42 hits each of her four years starting on the varsity--close to two hits per game, on average, during her upper three years.

Starting two years earlier than Linda and overlapping with her during Stephanie's junior and senior years, Alvarez hit .380, .370, .400, and .500. Her homer totals were 3, 1, 2, and 9. RBI's: 21, 18, 18, and 29. Hits: 27, 20, 24, and 46. Ditto same impressive per-game ratio as Linda.

Stephanie, though, had to suffer through horrible seasons with her teams the first three years, with won-lost records of 4-24, 4-21, and 3-24. Even though Linda came aboard Stephanie's junior year in 2014, the Vikings were still dreadful at 3-24. Just having those two stellar players wasn't enough to lift them out of the muck and mire.

Linda played her latter three seasons during the present "golden age" of La Jolla softball. The Vikings' program has been helped by the present structuring of CIF teams by performance rather than school enrollment. This has meant they could play in Division IV the past two years, reaching the title game each season.

You could say Stephanie put in the hard work in the mines to help set the stage for the current success of Linda and her teammates.